


Repairing

by Italianguy88



Category: Avengers (Comics), Marvel (Comics), Young Avengers
Genre: Canon - Comics, Female Friendship, Gen, Male Friendship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-28
Updated: 2014-12-28
Packaged: 2018-03-03 22:01:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,060
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2889479
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Italianguy88/pseuds/Italianguy88
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kate's life is a mess, and she feels stuck. But that doesn't mean things can't start going in the right direction again.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Repairing

**Author's Note:**

> For the timeline, this takes place after Hawkeye #20.
> 
> Rated Teen and Up just to be sure.

Life _definitely_ sucked.

Kate Bishop was pretty sure of it. When she mulled over her life (when she wasn't babysitting Mr. Stay-Out-Of-My-Life Barton, or she wasn't fending off the goons of Madame I-Will-Make-You-Pay Masque), she always came up to that conclusion.

When did everything start to go south? When did it begin to feel like her life was being twisted around as a yo-yo, and then discarded after five minutes?

For that one the answer was easy, at least. It definitely started when things came to a head, and the Young Avengers' past had reached up to them. And suddenly, everything around her had begun to break into a thousand pieces, starting with her best friend's life.

Cassie. It would have been hard not to befriend her, as she was the only girl in the team beside her, but in her Kate had found someone on which she could count; someone that she was sure would come running if anything happened to her.

It didn't matter what had happened before, it didn't matter that whole Civil War and Initiative thing, Cassie had been always there, even when she wasn't; she had given Kate (and the others) a direction, because more than anyone else she was the reminder that they weren't just superpowered teenagers fooling around, they were the living legacy of the world's greatest heroes.

So, as soon as she had seen her dead body lying on the ground, bloodied, burned and lifeless, amongst her grief Kate had experienced a feeling that was basically the universe's way of telling her that this was just the beginning.

And of course it was; despite the whole "you are now Avengers" thing (it was still a nice try from Captain America), that day a team that was the living promise of a continuing era had just been shattered, and was no more; pretty much in the same way her life as she knew it was over.

Obviously, it could only go downhill from there, and it did: partnering up with Hawkeye (senior), while a memento of her skills that would have made the average S.H.I.E.L.D. operative jealous, only gained her the enmity of a big-name Mafia queen and quite a bit of yelling from the man whom she was trying to support (seriously, who the heck could figure out Clint?); the new Young Avengers had been like a multiverse version of "The Great Escape", with everything (the setting, the villains, the team) a blur and nothing standing still more than a few seconds.

Then, just when Kate had decided she needed a break from all of this, a moment to clear her head and get a breather, the universe had gleefully kept throwing things at her; the family mess had left her broke as heck and had granted her a +1 level on her untrustworthiness sense. Even though it still spoke volumes how she was determined to keep going on her own feet, it hadn't helped the realization on how much easier and comfortable it was to superhero around with plenty of cash just an ATM away.

So, it was pretty clear why her mood wasn't exactly sky-high, while she was wasting away the morning slouched on the couch in Clint's flat, Lucky draped on the floor and Barton having enough common sense to stay away from her, as she tried to find some answers on the ceiling.

She was still trying to find them, when Clint came back in; and had she paid attention, Kate would have definitely noticed a devious spark in his eyes, above his face too deliberately plain to be credible. After raiding the fridge for a beer, he came up to her, but she didn't even glance at him. Good.

"Hey, kid." he murmured nonchalantly. "How long you planning to try and set fire to the ceiling with your glare?"

Kate answered with a noncommital grunt.

Clint's hand went through his stubble, while he bent over. "You look like you'd benefit from emptying you soul a little? Anything you would like to say to me?"

Her eyes wandered away from the ceiling and towards the opposing wall, along with her head. Hawkeye senior sighed.

"All right, I tried. Well, anyway, if you don't feel like talking to me, perhaps you'd like to talk about someone else. There's a friend I know who's got a daughter, she's more or less your age; perhaps she can lend you an ear as you tell your tragic backstory, huh?" he drawled, and again she didn't notice how fake it sounded.

Instead, Kate breathed out with her mouth. "If that gets you out of my air for a few hours, why not?"

"That's fine, I'll tell her to come over and get lost. Be nice with her, Katie-Kate!" Clint shot back matter-of-factly, and she didn't notice the triumphant smirk.

\-----

After thirty minutes of finding new ways to define how her life sucked, Kate heard someone knocking softly on the door.

Recollecting immediately what Clint had told her, she sighed loudly. "It's open!"

As the door opened and the stranger entered the flat, Kate couldn't help but think that Hawkeye was going decidedly naive; could he really believe that her problems would go away just by talking with someone?

No, the problem was not that; the problem was the someone to talk to. The only someone that would have been able to understand her, and console her, and tell her that she was wrong about the universe was currently six feet under.

She had tried; she had done her best to cope with the loneliness that crept up to her way too often even after months, to stop picking up her phone and mindlessly punching in Cassie's number, to find someone else; she had found no one. Even the new team of hers, with the old faces in there, couldn't help her; Billy and Teddy had issues of their own and she couldn't blame them, Tommy was... just Tommy and she totally blamed him for that, Noh was a 'quite okay' kind of guy but he probably couldn't understand, Loki was an automatic no-go and America, despite all her qualities that made her glad she was around, was not someone from whom she could expect understanding, not about this.

Closing her eyes as the old pain began crawling from her heart and under her skin again, Kate heard the footsteps coming closer and then stopping. Not even bothering to sit up straight, she cut the chase. "Sorry, whoever you are, but you are kinda wasting your time up here. You can get out of here and do something more pleasant; right now I don't feel like talking!"

The answer to this cold rebuffing was a brief giggle and just one phrase. "No problem. I can wait."

The words per se were nothing special, but the voice, coupled with the familiar sound that came before, had the effect of an electric shock; Kate bolted upright, her brain completely fried, and her heart almost giving out from the utter shock and the painful disbelief that emanated at each heartbeat.

It took little time for her eyes to pick up the scene and send it to her brain to make her see it; it took much longer for her to accept it, to convince herself that it wasn't her sanity slipping and hitting the floor like a ceramic vase.

But Kate still refused to believe that Cassandra Eleanor Lang was standing right there in Clint's flat; virtually identical to the Cassie Lang she had known, up to her death by Dr. Doom's hand; with an expression so full of that sweet joy she knew so well.

After a second, that ghost jokingly pouted a little, while tilting her head to her side slightly. "Are you going to pick up your jaw from the mouth or what, Kate?"

She shut her mouth, mostly at least; her eyes were still transfixed on that unbelievable apparition, an apparition that now walked over and sat down on the couch just beside her.

"I... You..." The young archer's brain and tongue were understandably disconnected.

Reaching over with a smile, Cassie put her hand, a strangely warm and physical hand, on Kate's, and looked at her understandingly.

"It's me, Kate. I'm not a ghost... or a Skrull." Mockingly furrowing her brow, the blonde raised her other hand and began counting down in an overly serious tone. "I'm not a zombie... definitely not image inducer... pretty much sure they never bothered with a Life Model Decoy for me... so, this must be me!"

The younger Hawkeye's mind was still struggling to grasp the reality before her, against which the reality of her memories were crashing like sledgehammers. Cassie punching the heck out of Doom; Doom blasting her away; Scott Lang cradling her dead body. "No. N-no, it can't..."

"Of course it can." The sosia countered immediately, with a painfully familiar self-assurance. "We're superheroes, remember? And if someone or something decided that I get a second chance... hey, why not?"

Kate's vision was becoming increasingly blurred. "You... I m-mean, you..."

She saw something shiny rolling down Cassie's face, as it came closer to envelop her into a hug. "Shhh... I'm here for you, Hawkingbird."

Bursting into a wet and almost histerical laughter, Kate held that warm, alive body against hers, relishing in its solidity, and releasing all the emotions her heart couldn't hold anymore. The tears blinded her, and she saw nothing more; but she could feel her friend against her, participating in her release, and letting out the exact same kind of tears of joy.

\-----

It took quite a long time for Kate to let go of everything that she couldn't and didn't want to contain. By the time she finally let go and stood back, both her and Cassie's back were decidedly wet; not that they cared.

Both girls took advantage of the tissues that Clint had surreptitiously put on the small coffee table near the couch, and that's when it dawned on her.

"I'm _so_ going to murder Clint for this!" Her threat was somewhat ruined by the tears that had stained her face, and by her smile.

Cassie giggled, and it sent another pang of pain and joy through Kate's heart. "Oh, c'mon Kate, he was just trying to be helpful and give you something to cheer you up!"

"Well, it worked perfectly, I'd say!" Kate's answer was cheerful, but she saw something in Cassie's eyes; something that equalled a silent question. "No, seriously, if anything could make me feel better, this sure did!" Sniffling, she put a hand on her friend's shoulder to squeeze it a little. God, how she enjoyed the firm feeling of the flesh and bone under her hand!

Cassie smiled and nodded, somewhat relieved. "I'm glad to hear it. Dad told me that, even though he wasn't exactly up-to-date with what happened with you and the others, word was that you were having a rough time."

The archer shrugged, still smiling widely. "No joke. After everything that happened, I was quite convinced the world was against me!"

"Everything that happened..." Cassie's answer was murmured, as she looked into a distance. After an awkward second, she went on. "My dad also told me about Vision."

_Oh._

That was enough to immediately cancel Hawkeye's smile, replaced with a worried expression. She struggled to find the right way to talk about this. "Did... did he tell yoy how...?"

"He told me Iron Lad killed him." Cassie's eyes were tearing up again.

Awkwardly reaching up to her, Kate sighed. "He did. He... wanted to save you, to bring you in the timestream, Vision refused, told him that this was what Kang would've done, and... Iron Lad destroyed him."

Her friend said nothing at first. Then she spoke up. "There was nothing left of me to save. I was dead." Her voice was so plain it actually hurt.

"I know. He... Iron Lad wanted you to live. He..." Kate trailed off. After what had happened, she and the others had never discussed the actions of Nate; perhaps it was because no one had an answer to the question that came with it.

Cassie hung down her face; tears were bristling down her cheeks again, and these were not of joy. "I loved him; and I loved Vision, too. I just never imagined... never really got around the whole identity thing; I thought we could work it out, if it came to that. But in the end, if actions speak louder than the words..." She looked up at her friend, pain etched all over the face. "What does it tell about Nate?"

Scooting closer to her, Kate wrapped an arm over Cassie's shoulders, as she had done many times before, whenever a certain fifteen-year old girl had gone to her for advice, as if looking for an older sister. "I don't know, Cass. I... really don't know."

"And Jonas..." Kate almost cringed at how pained Cassie's voice sounded. "He died too; but I'm back, and he's not."

Suddenly alarmed at a signal she knew all too well (namely a barely recognizable reduction of her size), Hawkeye jumped in. "Hey, you're here, right? If you are back, why can't Jonas do the same?"

Two blue and crying eyes looked up to her. "What if it's impossible?"

That was a perfectly legitimate question; and unfortunately, not one Kate was prepared to answer. To be honest, the lot of them, while never questioning Vision's status as an individual, had never truly understood the whole synthozoid stuff, and its implications. They had discussed it briefly after the battle against Doom, but more than anything else, the uncertainty of being capable of taking him back just by building a new body (and that alone would have been really a challenge) and filling it with its back-up drives had meant that they had decided against it.

Slowly, Kate murmured : "If... it is, then the best thing we can do is remember him. Not as a machine, not as an ally, but as a friend... or something more. And I am sure that, wherever he is, he would be happy to know that you have a second chance... even if it's not with him!"

Much to her relief, Cassie broke into a small smile, and sniffled. Then she let out a little laughter. "God, I am impossible! I come here to try and cheer you up, and all I do is cry over your shoulder. Can you believe it?"

Happy that she was moving on, Kate smirked at her. "Hey, that's what friends are for, Giant Girl!" And she punched her lightly on the shoulder.

This made Cassie til her head and look at her in suspicion, although her grin kind of ruined the effect. "Which reminds me... what did you tell my dad while I was dead?"

Trying to contain her smirk, Kate waved her off. "Oh, everything! Your bravery, your battles, your committal..."

"...And nothing about my musical tastes?" Her friend asked not-so-matter-of-factly.

Struggling to control her lips, the archer took up her most innocent face and shook her head. "Nope!"

Cassie narrowed her eyes and pointed an accusing finger at her. "Then why did he spend an hour looking up at Taylor Swift music videos online and then glancing at me in a weird manner when he though I wasn't looking?"

Kate was losing the battle, but she still held on. "I have no idea of what you're talking ab..."

The door exploded, and, after one or two seconds in which the only thing the two girls could do was jump up and stand, several henchmen (well, that was easy, who else could jump in in cheap suits and shitty Ray-Bans?) filled the room, each of them with a gun pointed at either Kate or Cassie.

"Don't move, or we'll shoot!" barked the Alpha henchman.

The two teenagers glared at the thugs, then at each other; at the same time, they mouthed "Later!". Then each of them bursted into action in her own proper way. Kate lunged at one of the henchmen on her side, so quickly that the others couldn't take the shot, and knocked him out cold with a blow at the neck, then immediately after she went low and tackled another two. Cassie grew to a comfortable twelve feet, shredding her civvies to reveal the red-and-black Stature costume beneath, and, while the thugs wasted a precious istant gawking at her, backhanded the heck out of them.

Two or three suitmen who were still on their feet bolted for the door, screaming something in a mic. Kate didn't bother to follow up immediately, as she was busy picking up her bow and quiver; as she stood up again, she saw a now normal-sized Cassie who had just put on her trademark domino mask, and grinned at her.

"Ready to rock, Hawkeye?" Cassie smirked.

"Let's rock, Stature!" Kate nodded, with a huge grin plasted on her face.

\-----

"...Of course, I immediately brought her to Pym, to see if she was really okay." Scott Lang was comfortably perched on the edge of a rooftop, mindlessly playing with a beer bottle and looking at his friend beside him.

"Huh. Never had the doubt that she could be, I dunno, a clone, an imposter of some king, a time-displaced somewho...?" Clint Barton asked nonchalantly, staring at him beneath his shades.

Scott shook his head, grinning. "Nope. As soon as I saw her, right there on my doorstep, I knew that my Cassie was back. And believe me, after everything I've seen and done in my life, I've never experienced something like that!"

Clint raised his eyebrow, then shrugged, taking another sip of his own beer. "Well, I guess that when your only daughter turns out to be alive and well while you believed her dead must be something. But I'll have to trust you with that, since I could never know, not with my childless, wild-woman lifestyle..."

Ant-Man snorted in his beer, then it was his turn to quirk an eyebrow. "And what's the deal with Kate, then?"

In a surprisingly serious manner, Hawkeye slowly dropped both his bottle and his gaze; only after a few seconds he answered. "I dunno... I mean, I look at her, and I can almost see myself. Almost." Shaking his head briefly, he gestured randomly. "And... well, when I first got around, when I got back, she was alright, pretty much like me when I first got into the Avengers... young, full of spunk, ready to talk smack even to Captain Star-Spangled Banner!"

Scott listened intently, and didn't interrupt him.

"But then, after... after that whole Doom fiasco, something changed. She saw her best friend dead on the ground, and that's a thing that can kill someone, or perhaps kill its soul. That's why... part of the reason why I got her to stick around me..." Clint was sounding really pained, by then.

"You wanted to keep tabs on her?" Lang suggested.

"Yeah, I... wanted to make sure she could hold on. And she kinda did, she moved on, the whole new team thing somewhat helped, but..." With a sigh, the veteran Avenger turned to his colleague. "There was something in her, before; something she lost that day. And I couldn't help her find it again; of course, not when I let myself being dragged down by my own shitty life and stuff, so much that I yelled at her so that she would get out of here before... before..."

Clint's voice had become so high that Scott worriedly put a hand on his shoulder; this helped him calm up a bit.

His words were still not coming out easily, though. "Now she's pretty much stuck, at least so she thinks. She has gone off to L.A. and came back broke and with lots of anger inside. Her team's pretty much history, or so she told me. When it comes to babysitting, there's hardly anyone in the Avengers that could suck at that more than I do. That's why when you phoned me and told me that Cassie was back and wanted to hear about Kate, I..."

"Hey, Clint." This time Ant-Man interrupted him. "Don't sell yourself short; you helped her through all this, and in the meantime you had your own life to worry about. Perhaps you made a mistake or two, but that's just human." He briefly chuckled. "Besides, about the babysitting thing, from what I gather she's hardly the girl who's okay with just following some guy around like a puppy!"

Clint let out a small smile, and his friend elbowed him gently. "Even when said guy is the infamous Hawkeye, the terror of single ladies, especially when he shows how big his bow is, and..."

"Hey!" Hawkeye protested, shoving him away, but clearly trying not to laugh. "You're overstepping, my dear Mr. La..."

But just then he was interrupted by a peremptory beeping coming from his belt.

Furrowing his brow, he scavenged inside and took out a signaler. "Hey, Kate's alarm's off. Must mean that she's in trouble...!"

Clint didn't have to say anything more; he jumped up and began to run on the rooftop towards his house, while Scott put on his helmet and followed suit as soon as his bug-ride arrived.

While barreling towards their destination, Hawkeye could almost touch the stress and worry emanating from Ant-Man; not that he was perfectly ok, himself, since Kate tended to ignore the 'calling help' strategy unless the odds were really against her.

"Don't worry. I'm sure Cassie's fine." he bellowed. Scott didn't answer to that, but Clint could almost hear him praying for the exact same thing.

Finally, they arrived to the last corner; Hawkeye nocked a generic arrow, ready to let it loose, and Ant-Man called upon all the ants in the surroundings, ready to order the army at his command to attack. As they finally negotiated the corner, both of them were strained almost at the breaking point.

And both of them screeched to a halt at the same time, freezing (escluding Scott, who returned to its normal size out of shock or relief).

Dangling in the courtyard, like a ludicrously large ball bag, at least two dozen men in suits and shades were suspended some twenty feet in the air, gathered together in what seemed like a volleyball net.

Just under them, a girl in a purple costume with a bow and a quiver and a twelve-foot girl in a red and black costume were heartily laughing to some joke or old story of theirs, oblivious to the groans and moans coming from the unhappy thugs or the stares coming from the building's windows.

" _What the h-e-double hockey sticks_?!" Clint muttered.

Ant-Man ran towards the girls, and waved. "Cas... er, Stature! Are you okay?"

Seemingly noticing them for the first time, the girls turned towards them, the giant one shrinking down until she was the same size of a normal teenager. "Yes, I'm perfectly fine, dad! No worries." Cassie's smile contrasted nicely with the worried features of Scott.

"What the heck? Why did you call us if you had everything under control?" Clint squawked indignantly at Kate, pointing to the makeshift thugball bag.

His protegé shrugged, and flashed a malicious grin that made him shiver. "Well, since we still have lots of things to go by..."

"...We thought you could call the cops to clean up this mess and get those guys for us. Ok? Thanks?" Cassie cheerfully finished for her, putting a hand around her shoulders and leading her towards the entrance.

Both heroes stood here, dumbfounded, looking at the young girls happily chatting disappear into the building. Then they both glanced at the suspended thugs.

"...How about you get them down here, and I call the police?" Clint finally offered, resigned to his sad fate.

Scott, actually impressed on how smoothly the girls had resumed their friendship, and stuck the two of them on clean-up duty, nodded cheerfully. "No problem."

As Ant-Man began to grow bigger, Clint sighed, pulling out his cellphone. "You still happy your little girl's back and is making us clean up after her mess?"

He heard Scott snickering. "You betcha."

"You need help." _Maybe not having kids is not so bad after all..._

**Author's Note:**

> This might seem a little OOC in this portrayal of Kate. I mean, she is usually portrayed as a strong, indipendent young woman who, no matter what the universe throws at her, never stops.  
> But honestly, after keeping tabs with the 2nd volume of YA and the Hawkeye series, I got the impression that after CC everything pretty much started to go donwhill for her. 
> 
> So, in my mind I saw Kate having a bad moment, making a balance of her life up to that point and being all broody and stuff, and thought that it wasn't too implausible.  
> And I was intrigued by the idea of Cassie showing up to tell her she's back, both of them reuniting and discussing what happened (and yeah, also dealing somewhat with the Iron Lad/Vision thing), and having a fight as the best way to celebrate it.


End file.
